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My daughter has decided to have a non-catholic/non-religious wedding. There does not seem to be any possibility of changing her mind mostly due to her fiance. Needless to say this has caused some "discomfort" within my family. While I know that the wedding can not be blessed by the Catholic Church, is there any type of a Catholic blessing or prayer that I can give at the wedding or at the wedding reception? I am at a loss as to what else I can do.

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    If your daughter and her fiance are happy for you to, I'm sure the Catholic Church would be fine with you praying. Prayer is always a good thing to do. Are you asking though whether there is a recommended set prayer you could pray?
    – curiousdannii ♦
    Oct 11, 2018 at 2:36
  • They can seek a dispensation from their bishop to forgo the canonical form. Otherwise, they will be entering an invalid marriage.
    – Geremia
    Oct 11, 2018 at 20:14
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    Which country is this? The UK, for example, forbids any religious words at civil ceremonies.
    – Andrew Leach
    Oct 11, 2018 at 23:06

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Let the Lord help you say the loving words: use Scripture

1 Corinthians 13, RSV has only ever moved me -- when I wasn't a baptized Christian and now that I am. I've been hearing this at weddings since I was about 10. My younger brother, a non believer, finds these passages poignant and beautiful in tone and intention. You can't lose.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;
5 it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6 it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
9 For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;
10 but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. 13 So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

I have found that if you omit 11 and 12, most people don't notice, since it wanders from the nuptial theme in a different spiritual direction.

Granted, if this is one of the readings at the wedding during the ceremony, then you've got to reach for another bit of inspiration. I'd recommend looking through the Song of Songs for a passage that moves you.

(And it happened again; as I reviewed this before posting, my eyes got wet with the power of this scripture).

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